Tag: Diablo 3

Some thoughts on Diablo III’s latest developments

Blizzard used the Blizzcon opening ceremony to announce a bunch of new stuff for Diablo III. The biggest news is that the fan-favorite Necromancer will be added to the game as a special DLC pack, but there will also be a number of smaller additions as well, including two new areas and some quality-of-life improvements to the UI. Initially, I was excited by this news. The Necromancer was one of my favorite characters in Diablo II, and I’d love to have a chance to play him again. But my excitement was short lived, and I’ve been trying to figure out why that is.

I think the bottom line is that there’s nothing left for me to do in D3 now that I’ve reached level 70 with almost every character. I could keep going in order to rack up paragon points, but that whole system feels bland. The points themselves feel like naked game mechanics, and it’s hard to see them as achievements when they’re shared among all your characters. I don’t particularly enjoy doing rifts or even bounties. They both feel pointless after a while. In Campaign Mode, you have a purpose; in Adventure Mode, you’re just grinding for the sake of grinding. It’s bearable when you’re leveling and getting new abilities, but once you’ve unlocked everything, it becomes tedious. I’d probably enjoy it more if I were more invested in the loot hunt. This isn’t because I think the items are bad or uninteresting. I’m just reluctant to spend hours and hours and hours killing monsters in the hope that I’ll be favored by the RNG. The investment is too steep, and the reward too nebulous.

This isn’t to say that D3 is a bad game. Far from it. I’ve spent over 430 hours in Sanctuary, and I enjoyed every minute. But my taste in games has changed since D3’s release. My focus now is on story-driven games where the replayability comes from your choices rather than your loot. That’s why I love Pillars of Eternity, Planescape: Torment, and Skyrim and I’m stoked for Torment: Tides of Numenera and Tyranny. Part of the fun of rolling a new character in those games is being able to make a different set of choices and seeing how they play out in the gameworld.

Unfortunately, D3 is severely lacking in the story department. The plot itself is nothing spectacular, but there are ways to compensate for that. After all, Skyrim has a rather generic plot, too.  But it’s less of an issue because there’s so much else to do. I’ve played Skyrim with five different characters, and each playthrough has felt different from the others. Sometimes, it feels like I’m playing completely different games. In D3 on the other hand, every playthrough is more or less the same. Sure, you might get different random events, but there will be no meaningful differences between each playthough. Obviously, D3 is not going to have as much content as an open-world game like Skyrim, but Blizzard could have added a lot more plot-related diversity. Looking back at the developers’ pre-release comments, it seems they were originally planning to include a lot more story content, but those ambitions went unrealized. Without more story options, there’s not much to keep me invested in the game given my antipathy toward grinding.

Despite my bellyaching, I’ll almost certainly buy the Necromancer pack when it comes out. It’ll give me an opportunity to reach level 70 with a new character, and The Physicist and I can have some fun with him in multiplayer. I’ll probably try Campaign Mode again as well just so I can have a sense of purpose. But that may be my last visit to Sanctuary for a while.

An oral history of Diablo II

US Gamer has published a rather interesting oral history of Diablo II. It’s a long read, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

For me, the most interesting bits were the ones that talked about story development. I assumed that the designers were more or less in control of the game’s story, but with Diablo I and II, the cinematics team played a huge role in shaping the game’s narrative, and they worked more or less independently of the designers. For example, it was the cinematics team that decided that the hero should shove the soulstone into their forehead at the end of the first game. Judging from what Erich Schaefer says in the oral history, the design team wasn’t entirely sold on the idea, but there was nothing they could do about it.[note]On a side note, my Mom absolutely hates the ending to Diablo I. Although she’s spent hundreds of hours playing the game, she’s never killed Diablo since she doesn’t want to jam the soulstone into her head.[/note]

Diablo III has gotten a lot of flak for its weak story, and a lot of fans act as if the Blizzard North guys were master storytellers.[note]Blizzard North was a subdivision of Blizzard formed when they purchased Condor Games. Blizzard North went on to create Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Blizzard Irvine disbanded the team in 2005.[/note] But the oral history suggests that the parent company has always played a key role in shaping the Diablo story, for better or worse.

This approach to story development might seem rather careless, but they had a lot less to work with back then. Many plot elements that fans now take for granted (e.g., the love affair between Inarius[note]Although Inarius was first mentioned in the Diablo I manual, his role there differs greatly from his role in the present canon.[/note] and Lilith,  Zayl the Necromancer) didn’t enter the canon until after the release of LoD. Richard A. Knaak in particular played a huge role in fleshing out the world of Sanctuary with his Sin War trilogy, but that didn’t come out until 2006-7. Blizzard’s approach to lore is a lot more professional nowadays (they even have a ‘Senior Vice President, Story and Franchise Development’), though as Diablo III shows, this method has its own drawbacks.

Datamining Reaper of Souls

A version of Reaper of Souls, the Diablo III expansion pack, has been leaked and subsequently datamined by eager fans. Now the results have to be taken with a heaping grain of salt because RoS is still a long ways from release, but there are some interesting tidbits nonetheless. If you want to experience RoS as a wide-eyed virgin, I suggest you skip this post. That being said, I’m not going to discuss anything too spoilery (I’m not going to talk about new lore or plot points).

By User:Holek (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Blizzard has already said that the existing five classes will get an overhaul in RoS, but I was a little bit surprised at some of the changes they’re contemplating. For example, the Wizard might become more of an elementalist like the Sorceress in Diablo II. The Arcane Orb runes Arcane Nova, Tap the Source, and Celestial Orb could end up being replaced by Spark, Scorch, and Frozen Orb (which do lightning, fire, and cold damage, respectively), while Magic Missile’s Penetrating Blast and Attunement runes might be replaced by Conflagrate and Glacial Spike (which, as you probably guessed, do fire and cold damage). Even the ever-popular Spectral Blade could get an elemental overhaul, with Deep Cuts being replaced by Flame Blades and Impactful Blades becoming Ice Blades.

Some of these new runes also seem to impart an elemental buff of sorts. Each enemy you kill using Flame Blades will apparently increase the damage of your fire spells by 1% over 5 seconds, while Spark does something similar for lightning spells. Right now, elemental damage in D3 is strictly cosmetic (except for cold damage, which can slow/freeze enemies), but designer Travis Day has indicated that Blizzard wants to give elemental attacks unique properties once more.

The increased emphasis on elemental attacks is interesting because, when the Wizard was first announced, the D3 team said that they wanted to move away from the whole ‘elemental magic user’ paradigm in order to differentiate her from the Sorceress. I’d be curious to know why they changed their mind. My guess is that it ultimately boils down to build diversity. By differentiating the various types of damage and offering buffs, Blizzard can theoretically give players more tactical choices. While some people will undoubtedly gripe that they are rehashing the Sorceress, I think the changes have the potential to make the Wizard an even more enjoyable character to play.

The datamining has also revealed a lot of promising-looking side quests. It looks like the followers will finally get the unique missions that were promised when they were first revealed, and there are also a number of challenges that seem reminiscent of Torchlight II’s Phase Beast portals. I’m also intrigued by the quests that are identified as “OpenWorld_Tutorial.” It would be nice if they had a mode where you could just explore instead of having to repeat the same quests time and time again, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

As I mentioned earlier, all this information is highly speculative, and it’s virtually certain that some or all of the things I’ve mentioned won’t appear in the final game. If there’s one thing that D3C’s development has taught us, it’s that Blizzard loves to change their minds!

Cyberthuggery

Polygon has posted an interesting article about the growing number of video game designers who are being harassed by players.

The article makes for sobering reading, but I can’t say I’m surprised. When I was following the development of Diablo III, I was shocked at how vitriolic the “fans” could be. Whenever Blizzard announced something remotely controversial, there would inevitably be a steady stream of bile directed toward the developers, particularly Jay Wilson. After reading some of the comments, you’d think that the design team’s decisions were going to echo for all eternity. Reading the comments on a Diablo fansite soon became a surefire way to lower my faith in humanity.

The reality, of course, is that a computer game is just an elaborate string of ones and zeroes. Even if they had totally fucked-up the game, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Sure, spending $50 on a piece of shit would have been annoying, but life would have gone on. It’s not worth being miserable over, nor is it worth trying to make someone else miserable.

The sad thing is that cyberthuggery can have a chilling effect on developer/fan interaction. There comes a point where even the thickest-skinned person will say “enough is enough” and either step away from social media entirely or retreat behind a PR stockade. Thus, the whole community ends up losing.

Diablo III: Wrath

The Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise promotional page finally reached 100%, which means “Wrath” is now unlocked. I was hoping to embed it here, but WordPress is being lame and won’t let me embed anything. So here’s a link instead.

Overall, I liked it. Even though it doesn’t contain anything new, it’s still a nice treat for fans. Auriel’s a lot more badass than I thought she’d be. In the Book of Cain, her Cord of Hope seemed kind of lame (“Auriel will sometimes drape Al’maiesh, the Cord of Hope, around her comrades’ shoulders to grand them clarity of thought and emotion.”). It sounded like little more than an angelic Ribbon Dancer. Color me impressed when I saw her use it to hack through demons and fetter the Lord of Terror himself!

The city/fortress behind the demon army was also a nice touch. I don’t know if it was supposed to be the Pandemonium Fortress from Diablo II, or if it’s just an unnamed settlement in Hell. Whatever it is, I hope it shows up in the game itself.

When I checked out the fan reaction to “Wrath,” I was surprised to see that a number of fans didn’t seem to like it. Granted, the Diablo fandom seems to have a number of chronic bellyachers, but opinion seemed to be even more sharply divided than usual. The animation in particular received a lot of flak from fans. Many people seemed to hate it just because it was anime (one person on Diablo IncGamers even compared it to Sailor Moon! *rolls eyes*), and I don’t think they would have been happy with anything less than full cinematic-quality CGI.

So what did you think of “Wrath”?

 

Diablo 3 Beta: Patch 13

I know some of my readers follow Diablo III, so I thought I’d include a shameless plug for my review of Patch 13 over at the Toonari Post:

Part 1

Part 2

It has all sorts of juicy info about the new skill system (which, incidentally, is really cool, despite what the naysayers say).

In other Diablo-related news, it looks like we may actually have a release date before the sun dies. According to Jay Wilson, we’ll see a release date announcement “in the near future.”  Exciting as this news is, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. After all, Blizzard’s definition of ‘the near future’ may be radically different from that of the man on the Clapham omnibus. 🙂

Iteration, or why I love Blizzard Entertainment

The sturm und drang surrounding the development of Diablo III continues. Back in September, the game’s release was postponed until “early 2012,” but Blizzard has still not given any hint of when we’ll be seeing it on store shelves. The game director recently took to the official D3 blog to explain what the team has been working on over the past few month. Some of the changes concerned core elements of the game, and many fans expressed outrage that the designers were still making major changes this late in the development cycle. As usual, Blizzard was unapologetic, stating once more that they will only release the game “when it’s done.”

Why am I bringing this up? Well, it occurred to me that Blizzard and I have a lot in common: we’re both addicted to iteration. I’ve technically been done with Evil in Thebes for months now, yet I can’t seem to stop tinkering. I suppose the most notable change was the main character’s name (Ptahmose is now Khamtir), but most of these changes are rather small: some additional wordsmithing here, a few extra tidbits of lore there.

None of these changes are particularly earth-shattering, so you might be wondering why I’d bother making them. After all, every minute I spend making changes to EiT is a minute I can’t spend querying or working on the sequel. But, like Blizzard, I’ll only stop fiddling with something when it’s actually done. However, there comes a point where you’re just making changes for the sake of changing things, and that’s when it’s time to stop and close the Word document for good. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to figure out when you’ve reached that point. In most cases, there’s no objective standard you can use to make that determination. It ultimately boils down to gut feelings and hunches, but the more you write and revise, the more self-aware you’ll become. “Übung macht den Meister,” as my German professors would say.

Diablo 3 beta observations

The friends-and-family component of the Diablo 3 beta test is now underway, and, in the absence of an NDA, there’s plenty of information swirling around. Of particular interest are the YouTube videos showing actual gameplay footage. They only show the very first areas of the game (the entire beta only encompasses the first third of Act 1), but, from what I’ve seen so far, it looks awesome.  The atmosphere is very dark and brooding, with nary a unicorn or rainbow in sight. The graphics aren’t exactly cutting-edge, but they’re still a treat to see. I’m really glad that Blizzard abandoned the pure randomness of the first two games in favor of hand-designed layouts. It makes for a much more realistic world.

The designers also appear to have done a nice job of scattering lore throughout the game. In the first two Diablos, most of the lore came from your conversations with townsfolk, but in D3 it looks like you find material while adventuring. For example, in one video, the player was treated to a neat little voiceover from Deckard Cain explaining the lore behind the ‘Wretched Mother’ monster. In another video, the player discovered a scrap of a journal that provided a new perspective on Diablo 1’s backstory. This too was relayed as a voiceover, so it didn’t take you out of the action.

The only slightly disappointing aspect of the game so far is the music. The initial theme when you enter the game is quite nice and very reminiscent of the original Tristram theme, but once you start adventuring into the wilderness, the music becomes what might be called “dark ambient.” It’s all very low-key, and it stands in marked contrast with Matt Uelmen’s score for Diablo 2. Uelmen’s work on D2 and D2X is some of the finest music I’ve ever heard in a video game, and I’ve included a number of his songs in my writing music playlists. That being said, I’m not really in a position to pass final judgment on D3’s music since I’ve only heard a handful of songs in isolation. Perhaps they’re much more effective when heard within the game itself.

More Diablo 3 news

Last week, Blizzard held a press event with the owners of several Diablo fansites in order to unveil the final (?) bits information before the beta begins. Now that the Non-Disclosure Agreement has expired, the blogosphere has been abuzz with new tidbits about Diablo 3.

For me, the most interesting announcement was that D3 will do away with skill points entirely. In D2, you received a skill point with each level up and you could use it to either augment existing skills or unlock new ones. Now, skills will automatically become available when you reach the necessary character level and, once you activate a skill, it will automatically scale as you level up (or, in some cases, it will scale based on your weapon’s damage). Also, the maximum number of active skills that you can have at any one time has been reduced from seven to six (apparently, you start with two active skills at the beginning of the game, and the number gradually increases as you level up until you reach the six-skill cap).

At first, I thought this change was a bit dodgy. Now that both stat points and skill points are gone, it seemed like it would be impossible to customize your character to any meaningful degree. But after reading interviews with the D3 team, I think the six-skill limit and the runestones will provide enough variety to keep things interesting. I think this new setup will also make the game a lot more enjoyable since it encourages experimentation in a way that Diablo 2 didn’t. When you only get one skill point per level, you can’t afford to take many risks. And since each D2 character only had a few skills that were viable in the long-run, you ended up putting most of your eggs into a very small number of baskets. So even though there will be a six-skill limit, I think D3 will encourage players to develop a broader skill base instead of just spamming one or two high-level abilities.

Blizzard also revealed three quest items that you’ll end up keeping throughout the entire game: the Cauldron of Jordan, the Nephalem Cube, and the Stone of Recall. The Cauldron allows you to sell stuff without returning to town, the Cube allows you salvage goods for their raw materials, and the Stone will allow you to portal back to town. The last item was a bit of a surprise since Blizzard had previously said that they wanted to remove town portals in order to make combat more challenging. No word yet on whether or not there will be any limitations on the Stone’s use, or if it will be just as easy to use as the old Scrolls of Town Portal.

The thing that seems to have generated the most chatter among gamers is the new Auction House feature. Now, it will be possible for you to take your loot and sell it for either in-game gold or real-world money (of course if you’re selling it for real money, Blizzard will take a cut of the profits). This is nothing new, of course. There were a number of third-party sites that allowed you to sell D2 loot. But now Blizzard is making these sales official, and a lot of people aren’t happy. They’re afraid that people with money to burn will end up dominating the game since they’ll be able to fork over cold hard cash in order to buy the best stuff, or that they’ll have to spend money to get the coolest stuff.

Personally, I don’t give a flying Fudrucker about the Auction House. I don’t care about finding the very best equipment; I’m happy to limit myself to the stuff I find naturally in the course of a game. I also don’t play with strangers on Battlenet, so I don’t really care what other people have. Chances are, the only people I’ll play with are The Physicist and perhaps The Elder Mr. Loch, and I can’t see either of them swanning off to the Auction House in search of Phat L00t.

What does annoy me though is the revelation that D3 will require you to be online to play, even in single-player mode. I had assumed that it would be like StarCraft II where they strongly encourage you to be online, but you can ultimately play offline if you wish. But no, Blizzard has decided that all characters will be stored on their servers, so you must be connected to the Internet in order to play any part of the game. This could be tricky for me since I have a temperamental Internet connection that misbehaves from time to time. It has been known to break down for an entire weekend, and it would be very annoying if I couldn’t play D3 at all during that time. It will also be much harder to play D3 when I’m traveling, since free high-speed Internet access isn’t exactly universal. I kinda wish Blizzard would let me play the game how I want and stop forcing Battlenet on me.

If you’re hungry for more info, here’s a report from one of the sites that attended the press event.

Diablo 3 beta news!

Blizzard president Mike Morhaime announced today during a conference call with investors that internal testing on Diablo 3 has begun and the team hopes to begin the beta test at some point during the third quarter (i.e. between July 1 and September 30).  He also made it clear that a 2011 release is still on the table, much to my delight.

Of course this all needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  This is Blizzard, after all, and they’re not afraid to miss deadlines if they think a game needs more polishing.  But I’m going to play the optimist and assume that we’re finally entering the home stretch after years and years of waiting.

Now the question I have to ask myself is whether or not I want to try to participate in the beta.  On the one hand, I’d love to get my hands on D3 as soon as possible, but on the other hand, I kinda feel like seeing the beta version of the game would ruin some of the magic.  Yeah, I know, I’m weird. 😛